Some info on Ocean Turtle’s structure, how there’s a titanium alloy pillar in the middle holding up the pyramid. At the bottom of the pillar behind several barriers are the nuclear reactor, and above that the main control room and the 1st STL room. These are closed off by another set of barriers, making up what are the Lower levels of Ocean Turtle. The Upper levels consists of the cooling system, the sub-control room where Rath personnel have retreated into, and the 2nd STL room. Robot #3 is making its way down on the stairs, backed up by a few JSDF soldiers. Elsewhere Higa and Yanai are going down a narrow duct for electric cables. Higa thought thankfully he wasn’t claustrophobic or afraid of heights. Though that doesn’t really matter right now, if they slip now they’d fall 50m to their deaths. Yanai had a pistol for protection, but he looked as bad or even worse than Higa did, likely from the stress. Rinko asked him through his earpiece are they doing alright, and Higa replied they’re fine and would reach the first lockdown barrier in 5 minutes. The plan is to send in Robot #3 the same time Higa and Yanai go down to provide a distraction.

Gabriel’s hacker noticed the warning the lockdown is lifted, and sent someone frantically to go see what’s going on. The team saw the robot and began shooting at it.

Higa took this chance to get below. The robot’s aluminium shell was ruptured, but the battery and wiring are within a titanium frame so it can probably buy some more time. Higa reached the place and began to work on the connections. Rinko went back to observe Kirito’s fluctlight state, while Higa thought Rinko hadn’t changed a bit from their student days.

Scene change to Sinon and Gabriel. Sinon knew Gabriel as his GGO name, “Subtilizer”. Gabriel commented he didn’t expect to see Sinon here. Sinon’s frozen in fear, her hands almost had let go of her GM bow. Gabriel asked if Sinon is part of the K organisation, or is she being a mercenary all the way out here? Sinon asked through dry lips why Gabriel is here, and Gabriel replies that should be obvious: it is fate and the connection between their souls that brings them together. Gabriel plans to devour Sinon and see if Fluctlights can be taken out of STL this way, and pick through all he wants to know from Sinon’s mind. The next scene is thick with rape metaphors, I’ll skip the details.

The world twisted like everything is being sucked into Gabriel. Sinon was reduced to feeling powerless, almost sucked into Gabriel, while he went on explaining why he had chosen his name. It’s not from the word 'Satori' of Buddihism, and while Subtilizer sounds like French it’s actually from Latin. It meant “the one that hides things below” – in other words, “the one that steals things away”.
Gabriel promised he’ll steal Sinon away, and everything she has with her as well.

Scene change, to where Asuna is. She yelled at everyone to escape from where they are right now, the bottleneck won’t stop enemies descending from above. Their supplies are ordered to be dumped, they don’t have time to run with them. Asuna controlled the giant statues to fight for them, buying some time for the UW humans and Japanese players to escape. Her mind sparked and she went in excruciating pain. All she could do was control the statues for 30 seconds, but that was enough to allow the UW humans to escape. With the loss of cover however the Japanese players can only try and defend from enemies on all sides. Asuna tried to use her ability one last time to make a fortress around the 2,000 Japanese players, but she collapsed from the efforts; blood also spurted out from her mouth. Klein yelled for her to not push herself, and Agil said to leave it to them. Others like the ALO Faction Leaders and the Sleeping Knights started to fight as well. The flowing black tide of attackers was momentarily stopped by the Japanese players, but even Asuna knows this is merely like trying to hold back a tsunami with their bare hands. As Asuna was struggling with the pain, she could faintly see PoH standing on his statue and hear him laughing madly.

Scene change to Higa. He has finished the process of connecting up Kirito’s STLs to the girls’. Higa was thinking it was unfortunate that he can’t manipulate STL #1 and #2 to fry the intruders’ Fluctlights, when Yanai pulled out his gun and pointed it at Higa. It turns out Yanai was the traitor in Rath that leaked info to the US. Yanai denied he was a traitor, that would suggest he was on Rath’s side to begin with. Yanai used to work with Sugou, and was also a culprit in kidnapping the SAO players. Another 2nd rate villain it seems, considering how Yanai boasted he did more than just ‘take part’ in the kidnapping and done a lot more things like ‘tentacle-plays’ >.>

Higa thought for a instant just what was Kikuoka thinking when he did the background checks, but then thought he can’t be blamed; skilled personnel in VR tech from large corporations are hard to come by, it’s no wonder Rath welcomed Yanai with open arms. Yanai continued with his boasting, how he kept contact with ‘Grogen Micro Electronics’, the same company that Sugou dealt with. Once Alice is retrieved Yanai will be given a high position within GME. Higa twitched nervously, and Yanai fired a warning shot. The shot ricocheted off the metal walls, and accidentally shot into Higa’s right shoulder. Yanai didn’t plan on that.

Scene change, back to Sinon. More attempted rape scenes with Gabriel on Sinon (Flere821 note: *facepalm* seriously, isn’t Gabriel supposed to be in a hurry to (re)capture Alice? How the heck does he have time for this $h1t?). All her fears and worries are disappearing as soon as she thinks them in this situation, being absorbed into Gabriel. Before Gabriel did anything intrusive/R18 a powerful spark blew him off of Sinon. Sinon recovered her mind and flew away immediately to get some distance between them. A memento Sinon have of Kirito, the electrode he had that saved him from being injected by poison during the GGO arc when he went to Sinon’s home, was somehow brought in here into UW. Nobody, not even Kirito and Asuna, knew she had this piece of metal that was turned into a pendant on her. This pendant was brought into UW due to Incarnation, or basically the materialization of Sinon’s feelings for Kirito. Sinon glared at Gabriel, whose hand is smoking from that last blast, and told herself Subtilizer isn’t a monster, just a human. To respond against Gabriel messing with her using only his imagination, Sinon decided to do the same. She transformed her GM bow into her Hecate II sniping rifle, and grinned back at Gabriel after activating the bolt handle on the rifle. Gabriel bared his fangs and his face twisted into a smile, though Sinon’s not sure if it was from anger or joy.